The National Hurricane Center now puts the eastern Atlantic disturbance at 70 percent and says a tropical depression is likely within days, while the Bermuda system it was tracking has slipped to 40 percent, and neither area is forecast toward Southwest Florida

The National Hurricane Center has raised the odds on the eastern Atlantic disturbance to 70 percent over seven days and now says a tropical depression is likely to form there within days, according to the Tropical Weather Outlook issued at 2 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, August 25 by forecaster Adams. Neither of the two areas the outlook carries is forecast toward Southwest Florida.

The system in question is the area of low pressure centered a few hundred miles south-southeast of the Cabo Verde Islands, tagged AL96 in the outlook and designated Invest 96L on Monday. The outlook states that it is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms, that environmental conditions appear conducive for gradual development, and that the system is likely to become a tropical depression during the next few days while it moves westward to west-northwestward across the eastern and central tropical Atlantic. Formation chances are 60 percent through 48 hours and 70 percent through seven days, up from 30 and 60 percent in the 2 p.m. outlook this desk reported on Monday.

Seventy percent puts that window in the high category. Every figure either system has carried in this desk's tropics coverage this month has been low or medium.

The same paragraph carries a limit on it. The outlook adds that environmental conditions could become less conducive for development by the weekend, a sentence Monday's product did not carry.

Hurricane center tracking data read on Tuesday morning places 96L at 11.3 north and 20.6 west, about 318 miles south-southeast of Praia in the Cabo Verde islands and about 4,104 miles from Fort Myers. Its position twelve hours earlier was 11.0 north and 18.5 west, roughly 144 miles further east, which matches the westward motion of 15 to 20 mph the outlook describes.

The other area moved the opposite way. The broad low near Bermuda, tagged AL95 and designated Invest 95L, fell from 50 percent over both windows on Monday afternoon to 40 percent over both windows on Tuesday morning. The outlook now places it a couple of hundred miles east-northeast of Bermuda, moving northward at 15 to 20 mph, and states that recent scatterometer wind data suggests the center of circulation is broad and elongated with shower activity that remains disorganized.

That system could still become a short-lived tropical depression or storm later Tuesday, the outlook says, before encountering increasingly hostile conditions on Tuesday night and Wednesday that are likely to end its chances for development. Tracking data places it at 34.6 north and 60.2 west, about 306 miles from Bermuda and about 1,397 miles from Fort Myers, roughly 180 miles further north than twelve hours earlier.

Gulf Coast News, the Fort Myers newsroom that reported the overnight change, carries the same figures on both systems. Meteorologist Lauren Hope reports that development odds have increased for the eastern Atlantic wave and decreased for the Bermuda low, and that the Bermuda system poses no threat to Florida.

Three named storms have formed in the Atlantic this season, Arthur, Bertha and Cristobal. Hurricane center tracking files carry no fourth, so the next name on the 2026 list, Dolly, remains unused.

September 10 is the climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, sixteen days from Tuesday.

The National Weather Service active alert list for Florida returned no active alerts anywhere in the state on Tuesday morning. No watch, warning or advisory is in force in Lee or Collier County, and neither Atlantic system is connected to any product in Florida.